Suggestions for improvements to VirtualBox
Posted: 11. Apr 2021, 12:02
Hello community! I've now been using VirtualBox for probably 10 years off-and-on, but in the last 2 years or so much more frequently now that virtualization is a bigger part of my life and beyond simply playing around. VirtualBox is an excellent program and my favorite out of all the hypervisors that I've tested over the years. To show just how much I love it, I currently have 40 virtual machines setup on my main laptop and another 25 on my secondary one... everything from the era of MS-DOS right through to Windows 10. I've been making notes along the way and now feel qualified to make some suggestions. These are probably trivial suggestions but I feel that they would improve consistency and quality of life for the program. Please forgive me if any of these have already been addressed that I'm not aware of.
Issues/Improvements
Cloning Virtual Machines
* Have the option to maintain the original virtual hard disk names instead of adding the suffix '-disk001.vdi/.vmdk' or '-disk1.vdi/.vmdk', and so on (so for example, maintain 'Windows_95.vdi' and not convert it to 'Windows_95-disk001.vdi' or 'Windows_95-disk1.vmdk').
Dropped Files
* Fix the issue where if you sometimes drag-and-drop a file from the guest OS to the host OS, the file doesn't get copied to the target location (It only happened to me one time where I tried to drag-and-drop a 3.5Gb+ .zip file from the guest OS to the host OS, both of which were running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and the file didn't get copied to the target location. I tried it 2 or 3 times and it didn't work. I had to go to the temporary folder created in "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\VirtualBox Dropped Files" and access the file from there, where it had got copied to with no issue. The version of VirtualBox at the time was v6.1.0.)
* I realize that I haven't narrowed the issue down more, but just thought I'd toss it in anyway for awareness if nothing else *)
* Remove the need to have copies of dropped files saved in a temporary location (For some reason currently all files copied to from the guest OS to the host OS have copies stored at the location "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\VirtualBox Dropped Files").
Importing Appliances
* When you import an appliance, be asked if you want to import the virtual hard disk file as a .vmdk file instead of doing it by default (Which I find strange because it's not even a native VirtualBox format). Also have the option to import the virtual hard disk file as .vhd as well as .vdi, so that if the original VM was created with a .vhd file as its virtual hard disk then everything would remain intact as it was originally created (I don't get why you're forced to go with non-original file formats).
* More accurate estimation of time remaining when importing an appliance (When importing a VM of a fresh install of Windows 7, for example, the estimated time is up to around 5 minutes and the progress bar only gets to about 25% progress before briefly jumping to around 99% and then actually only taking a few seconds overall to complete).
* Show a dialogue box with status once the process of importing an appliance is completed (Instead of the progress window just disappearing and having to assume it imported with no errors).
* Have the option to maintain the original virtual hard disk names instead of adding the suffix '-disk001.vdi/.vmdk' or '-disk1.vdi/.vmdk', and so on (so for example, maintain 'Windows_95.vdi' and not convert it to 'Windows_95-disk001.vdi' or 'Windows_95-disk1.vmdk').
Exporting Appliances
* When you export an appliance, have the option of what virtual hard disk file type you export to instead of the default .vmdk (Which again it bizarrely does considering that's not even a native VirtualBox file format but a VMware one).
* More accurate estimation of time remaining when exporting an appliance (When exporting a VM of a fresh install of Windows 7, for example, the estimated time is up to around just over 1 hour and the progress bar only gets to about 5% progress before briefly jumping to around 50% and then actually only taking a few minutes overall to complete).
* Show a dialogue box with status once the process of exporting an appliance is completed (Instead of the progress window just disappearing and having to assume it exported with no errors).
Menus
* Have an option to sort VMs in A-Z order in VM list (You currently have to do it manually by dragging-and-dropping entries up or down).
* Have an option to group VMs by family in VM list (There's currently no option to group by DOS, Windows, Linux, etc).
Questions
* Just out of curiosity, why were the extended virtual hard drive menu options that were present in older versions of VirtualBox such as HDD, QED, and QCOW removed?
Thank you very much in advance and I look forward to contributing on these forums in future!
Issues/Improvements
Cloning Virtual Machines
* Have the option to maintain the original virtual hard disk names instead of adding the suffix '-disk001.vdi/.vmdk' or '-disk1.vdi/.vmdk', and so on (so for example, maintain 'Windows_95.vdi' and not convert it to 'Windows_95-disk001.vdi' or 'Windows_95-disk1.vmdk').
Dropped Files
* Fix the issue where if you sometimes drag-and-drop a file from the guest OS to the host OS, the file doesn't get copied to the target location (It only happened to me one time where I tried to drag-and-drop a 3.5Gb+ .zip file from the guest OS to the host OS, both of which were running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and the file didn't get copied to the target location. I tried it 2 or 3 times and it didn't work. I had to go to the temporary folder created in "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\VirtualBox Dropped Files" and access the file from there, where it had got copied to with no issue. The version of VirtualBox at the time was v6.1.0.)
* I realize that I haven't narrowed the issue down more, but just thought I'd toss it in anyway for awareness if nothing else *)
* Remove the need to have copies of dropped files saved in a temporary location (For some reason currently all files copied to from the guest OS to the host OS have copies stored at the location "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\VirtualBox Dropped Files").
Importing Appliances
* When you import an appliance, be asked if you want to import the virtual hard disk file as a .vmdk file instead of doing it by default (Which I find strange because it's not even a native VirtualBox format). Also have the option to import the virtual hard disk file as .vhd as well as .vdi, so that if the original VM was created with a .vhd file as its virtual hard disk then everything would remain intact as it was originally created (I don't get why you're forced to go with non-original file formats).
* More accurate estimation of time remaining when importing an appliance (When importing a VM of a fresh install of Windows 7, for example, the estimated time is up to around 5 minutes and the progress bar only gets to about 25% progress before briefly jumping to around 99% and then actually only taking a few seconds overall to complete).
* Show a dialogue box with status once the process of importing an appliance is completed (Instead of the progress window just disappearing and having to assume it imported with no errors).
* Have the option to maintain the original virtual hard disk names instead of adding the suffix '-disk001.vdi/.vmdk' or '-disk1.vdi/.vmdk', and so on (so for example, maintain 'Windows_95.vdi' and not convert it to 'Windows_95-disk001.vdi' or 'Windows_95-disk1.vmdk').
Exporting Appliances
* When you export an appliance, have the option of what virtual hard disk file type you export to instead of the default .vmdk (Which again it bizarrely does considering that's not even a native VirtualBox file format but a VMware one).
* More accurate estimation of time remaining when exporting an appliance (When exporting a VM of a fresh install of Windows 7, for example, the estimated time is up to around just over 1 hour and the progress bar only gets to about 5% progress before briefly jumping to around 50% and then actually only taking a few minutes overall to complete).
* Show a dialogue box with status once the process of exporting an appliance is completed (Instead of the progress window just disappearing and having to assume it exported with no errors).
Menus
* Have an option to sort VMs in A-Z order in VM list (You currently have to do it manually by dragging-and-dropping entries up or down).
* Have an option to group VMs by family in VM list (There's currently no option to group by DOS, Windows, Linux, etc).
Questions
* Just out of curiosity, why were the extended virtual hard drive menu options that were present in older versions of VirtualBox such as HDD, QED, and QCOW removed?
Thank you very much in advance and I look forward to contributing on these forums in future!